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Camaron Thagor
His Majesty the Steward, King Camaron Thagor is the ruling King of Daggerfall and Greater Betony. Born into the lap of luxury as the inevitable centrepiece to what is easily High Rock's most storied and elaborate court, Camaron has spent most his life in a dazed, meandering struggle to make sense of himself - a struggle he has, by all accounts, lost, singularly failing to live up to his father's and his subjects' expectations both. __FORCETOC__ Titles His Majesty the Steward, King of Daggerfall, By right of blood and lordly acclamation, King of Greater Betony and the West, Imperial Lord-Baron of Tulune and of Betony, Princely Warden of the Imperial Duchy of Northmoor, Sovereign and Protector of Camlorn and all its domains, Duke of Chartry and of Reywich, Baron of Rithwyn, of Agaleck, of Elsvale, and so forth, Defender of the Temples and the Divines’ Faith, and of the Kynaran Orders of Daggerfall, Thrice-turned Lord in the Tower, as recognized by the Princes of the Void, Sovereign of the Illustrious Order of the Dragon, Lord and Father of the Royal Guilds and the Guilded Quarters, Magister-Protector of His Majesty’s Imperial Guild of Mages. Appearance It is perhaps a little unfair that it should be a king, of all people, who manages to retain still the fitness and poise of his youth, and yet wins in his (slowly) advancing age just one roguish strand of silver. Were it not for his reputation, which precedes him in all things, His Thagor Majesty might be a dream of a man - not at all plain, but not so blindingly handsome as to seem too fragile and artificial. Alas, the finest masks are often worn by Daedra; or, in the event, by regal wastrels. Naturally, Camaron has all the hallmarks of a West Breton aristocrat - the product of generations of careful Thagor breeding. His Redguard mother's only mark upon him is his slightly darker complexion; otherwise, he has the angular, vaguely Mer-like features so prized among his kingdom's best and noblest, and his father's dark brown hair. The latter is always kept to a fairly short, fashionable cut - not altogether difficult a task for one who dictates the fashions of the court. Needless to say, the king's wardrobe is, likewise, always the very pinnacle of western fashion, and it would be a futile endeavour to attempt to describe its entirety in any greater detail. At present, Camaron seems completely infatuated with Nibenese mothsilk, and therefore he (and all in his court who can afford to do so) is most often seen bedecked in various flowing, extravagant robes, whose rich hues shift with every shudder of the living fabric. Biography The story of Daggerfall's recent years is, by and large, Camaron's story; for he was born to become the body of the kingdom, and to the kingdom he should belong - as the kingdom should to him. Such is the tragedy of his life, which by the same unwanted bonds is transformed into the tragedy of the West. It might have been different if he'd had brothers or sisters; but he didn't. The only son to Their Majesties the Stewards, King Gothryd and Queen Aubk'i, Camaron never had even the slightest hope of a choice, and that he would lust after it at all marked him instantly as a failure and a disappointment in his father's eyes. Gothryd's attentions to his sole child and heir were inexcusably sporadic, and their mutual relief at this fact was one of the few things that father and son would ever share. So it was that Camaron was left with not much more than a mother. And Aubk'i, it must be said, loved her son dearly; she loved him with the clinging, possessive love of a prisoner in a strange land, allowed only one single thing that would be dear to her heart. She was his tutor, his shield, his support and inspiration. She filled his head with stories of Redguard and Yokudan heroes past, of great corsairs and the free swordsaints, and she lived those tales in their telling. They - Camaron - would remain her respite and refuge up until her life's waning days. 4E 2. The shadow of the Queen's death weighed heavily over the royal court; the next three years would go by wallowing in the morbid satisfactions afforded by protracted mourning, and the young prince Camaron loved nothing more than to pretend all was well with dwelling constantly on his loss - or perhaps he really didn't know any better. Even when, with a friend's help, the worst was finally past, the colours of Camaron's life seemed just a little muted; boredom, apathy and resignation to the meaningless humdrum of everyday courts were starting to take their toll. Kingship brought little change - at least, not to his rotting mind. In 4E 6, Gothryd succumbed to illness and injury; still confined to house arrest, Camaron's farce of a coronation - performed in his own chambers, to invest him with the power to break his unexpected bonds - was an unfortunate omen that, so many hoped, wouldn't set the tone for the whole rest of His Thagor Majesty's reign. Yet, crowned in the bedchamber, he seemed all too content to rule from it, too, and the only matters that might move the King of Daggerfall at all were "His Bridwell's" romantic exploits. Anchored to the level head of his one lifelong friend, it should come as no surprise that Samuel Bridwell's decision to devote himself to his daughter rather than His Majesty's court spelled doom for the spirit. The six years to come were pockmarked with endless overextravagant feasts, lavish dances and scandalous affairs, all marching in closed ranks against his advisers' forlorn cries for marriage, sense, moderation. It wouldn't be until the brutal shock of the Moonguard Revolt in 4E 18 that Camaron's spiral of self-destructive self-indulgence finally broke; in a manner of speaking, at least. Pressed on all sides by horrified cries for order and punishment of the guilty, by the wild and daring schemes of ambitious warlords at home and abroad, and by Camlorn's bitter call for protection and aid, Camaron finally broke, and did the one thing he'd hoped never to do - he agreed on an arranged marriage to a princess. So what if his heart couldn't take the thought of a twelve-year-old girl thrown to his whims? She would come eventually, one day years from then, and he'd more than likely break her heart - because she couldn't be all that he yearned for; princesses never were. The spell was broken, the loop interrupted. He hadn't seen his betrothed yet, but he would soon enough - six years were nothing, six more precious years of solitude. They'd fly by in an instant, and he couldn't change a thing. And so he seized upon change like a lifeline, as only a king might. After a whole reign spent toying indecisively with all the realm's greatest magnates and never committing, not even to his father's oldest friends - especially not to his father's old friends - suddenly a wayward proposal by the Archduke Beowen was subjected to the full force of Camaron's interest. Over a whim and a worry, he set the West ablaze in a bid to claim an imperial barony he'd never before cared for, and broke another's back. Not content to stop, he pressed on even further; and who knows what state his kingdom might be in, had the fateful day never dawned. As their betrothal had broken one vicious cycle, so the Princess - Queen - Kelmena's arrival ended another. They danced that night, what a long dance it had been... And for a time after, it seemed as though marriage might not have been the terror he'd feared. Their first year together was such a calm, happy time, he couldn't but forget; and as time went on, he forgot more and more, and of all the wrong things. A king's ambitions are never fulfilled, after all. Talents Far from the iron will and fist his kingdom requires at this trying moment in its history, the best that might be said of Camaron is that he is at least passionate - be it in life, in love, in kingship, or in passing whims. On occasion, this has meant that he persevered with plans that a ruler less possessed may have abandoned in their infancy; far more often, however, His Thagor Majesty finds himself with all the drive in the world, and no idea where or how to direct it, trapping him in a spiral of self-destructive fancies and unnecessarily perilous ventures. Ever questing for purpose, the king has embarked on so many projects and hobbies that it is entirely likely even he himself can no longer keep track of them all. As a child, and encouraged by his mother, he dabbled in all manner of visual arts, especially painting; only tattered echoes remain of it now. Later, and perhaps in hopes of impressing his father, the Crownprince dreamed of being a swordsman; he hasn't held a sword for well over a decade now, if not longer. And such is the story of Camaron's life in all matters but two: his flair for the romantic, fickle and forgetful though it may be, and - strangely enough - dancing, at which he excels like few others. Category:Characters Category:Breton Category:Royals Category:Nobility Category:Daggerfall